Confused: “But you eat chicken, right?”Misinformed: “How do you get enough protein?”Defensive: “I could be a vegetarian if I wanted to.”Impatient: “Are you still doing that?”Overcompensating: “Is there anything for you to eat on themenu?”From many restaurants, though it’s said via menu and notdirect address, the reaction is apathy: “Why should we care?”This, even though about ten percent of Americans are vegetar-ians, and many more seek to include more plant-based mealsin diets that still include meat. Meatless Monday, now activein forty-four countries, isan international movementintended to reduce meatconsumption by fifteenpercent. There seem to bemore restaurants cater-ing to the largely dubioushealth trend—gluten-freefood—than to the provenbenefits of eating more veg-etables. Why? My guess isbecause a third of peopleclaim to need gluten-freefood—although only onepercent actually has celiac disease—compared to the ten per-cent who are vegetarians [vegetables are gluten free, just say-ing]. In short, there’s more marketability in it, and it doesn’ttake as much effort.

I know, I know, there are amazing exceptions in Buffalo (I
don’t want to name names, lest I be taken to task for omission; if you’re making the effort, you know who you are), but
they are exceptions to the rule I encounter most times I eat
out. When I gush about restaurants that care about a vegetarian’s dining experience, I have criteria.

• Vegetarian options should be healthy. Statistic Brain
reports that fifty-three percent of vegetarians cite “overall
health” as their number one reason for choosing the lifestyle.
This means that restaurants offering artichoke dip, fried zucchini, mozzarella sticks, pasta hold the meatballs, and French
onion soup as sole vegetarian options don’t make my grade.
And there are way too many of these in Western New York,
places where I scan a multiple-page menu only to be left with
these or similar options; save the house salad, even the salads
all have meat! At most diners, a house salad or omelet are the
best go-tos—and that’s not much choice.

• Vegetarian options should be properly priced. At a restaurant without one meatless entrée, I was pleased when the

BY DONNA HOKE

I’ve been a vegetarian for nineyears, and the range of reactionsfrom friends remains consistent:My Buffalo vegetarian wish list

server indicated the chef would prepare something. No surprise that it was pasta with a few tossed vegetables; big surprise that I was charged twenty-five dollars for it. Other menus
that have one, albeit nice, vegetarian option charge as much
for it as the meat entrees. This strikes me as taking advantage,
akin to “You’ve got one overpriced option; deal with it.” (And
yes, you can sometimes order other items without the meat,
but you don’t get charged any less, and the remaining ingredients don’t make up for the lack of the central one.)

An extension of this problem is that restaurants offering
the best vegetarian options tend to be fine dining establishments, while the mid-level sit-down restaurants lag; see “
Vegetarian options are healthy,” above. (The exception is some
Asian restaurants, but for groups, that requires consensus
about the cuisine, and they aren’t as common.)

•Vegetarian options should not be token. Pasta primavera (nearly always with scant vegetables) and the Portobello
mushroom sandwich are standard bearers. (I’ll give a shout-out to Glen Park Tavern for having my favorite Portobello
sandwich.) Of late, the “veggie” burger is popping up, but
rarely with any indication of what’s in it—beans, soy, actual
vegetables? You’d be amazed at how many servers have zero
idea, which only illustrates how token (and likely frozen) the
option is.

I recently spent time in Rochester, NY, and Kalamazoo,
Michigan, where I ate in
casual restaurants that had
so many vegetarian options
I didn’t even know what to
choose; those experiences crystallized how rarely this happens in Western
New York. At one, I had
Caprese ravioli, at the other a beet-pineapple burger.

These were not fancy restaurants; one was at the
nice diner level, the other a
tavern. Both made me realize the lack of vegetarian variety here, particularly in main
dishes, and particularly at mid-priced restaurants (see “
Vegetarian options are properly priced,” above).

•Please, no “As there is no meat, it’s vegetarian” attitude. Yes, if it has no meat, it’s technically vegetarian, but
“vegetarian” implies vegetables. Vegetarians like vegetables,
and we prefer that they, not carbs and cheese, are the foundation of the dish. We want our choices to be as interesting and
fun as those offered to meat eaters, so that we’re not made to
feel like killjoys or difficult customers. Admittedly, this takes
creativity, and restaurants probably don’t find enough cost-benefit to make it worth their effort.

It could be worse; I could be vegan. I’m also aware that
there have been isolated but significant improvements even
in the past five years. I don’t expect to see changes across the
board, because I see how crowded restaurants are without
having to make them. Likely, it comes down to dietary demographics; people in WNY like their meat, and I’m in the clear
minority. As a result, when I eat out here, these are my experiences, and realistic or not, this is my wish list.

Playwright Donna Hoke is a frequent contributor to Spree,and the editor of Spree Home.

“Vegetarians like vegetables, and we prefer that they, not carbs and cheese, are thefoundation of the dish. We want our choicesto be as interesting and fun as those offeredto meat eaters, so that we’re not made tofeel like killjoys or difficult customers.”